with the thinking of death as an ideal of poverty. And I would just like to add a note to that as a way of summary. First of all, this day that I feel that we are about are fully engaged in the world. Our renunciation of the world does not mean that we are not engaged, but rather that we are engaged at the deepest possible level. It seems to me that a monk is concerned with the recreation of society from its very basis. while other religious orders generally accept the order of society in which they are and work within that, it seems to me a monk is called to withdraw in order to lay the foundations of a new society. And that is really exactly what is done by St.

[01:04]

Benedict, this liturgy. He simply laid the foundations of that new border of the Middle Ages, a Christian border, by withdrawing and building from the foundations. So it seems to me we as monks are concerned with laying the foundations, and I said particularly we normally live apart, we normally have a farm, and we're working at this basic order, where a man has to have his food, his drink, his clothing, and his shoes, and these are the basic things, Monks have normally, and I think rightly, been conserved with that, and that's why I feel that your monastery, and my own monastery in England, and also what we're trying to do in India, we are engaged on this basic monastic task, going right back to the foundation. Then the second point, which I don't know whether I made quite clear, is that when we are detached from material things, when we love the world, through that detachment we give up the effort to dominate the world,

[02:20]

that make ourselves the master of creation. But by surrendering that domination, by surrendering that attachment to material goods, we really learn to use material things in the way that God intended. We surrender this falsely in order that we may reach to a real Cooperation with God in the use of material things, one may say in the work of creation. I think some of you have mentioned it to me and I think that it is very definitely our task to cooperate with God in the work of creation. And the work of creation goes on into the hands of man. And in our labour, in our work, in our farming, we are cooperating with God. and in whatever work of craftsmanship we may do. And then you know what's the original idea of work. Like all the ages ago, man was cooperating with God, maybe with the gods.

[03:27]

in the pagan world, but always the saints who are cooperating with the divine order. So I think that is very important. You see, this is where our vocation is, so basically we are going right back to the foundations where we are suggesting this exploitation of nature for the benefit of man, trying to return to that original order in which man depends upon God and cooperates with God in this work, in this use of material things. And the third point is, arising from that, that this work of art is one of the fundamental means by which we affect this return to paradise, this death and resurrection. As we die to this patheticness, to the fights of private ownership, as Lenin calls it, becomes catch for the world, So, we are able to use things as they should be, and we return to that original order of providence, in which man cooperates with nature in the service of God.

[04:35]

And so, our elastic bag is a real beginning of this return to paradise. And that is developed in the Old Testament. Sometimes developed it's not, but I'd just like to mention it. because you may find it worth following up. The whole conception of the promise of the land. When God said to Abraham, Get thee out of thy country, thy father's house, to the land that I will give thee. He goes out of Babylon. civilized world, this world corrupted by sin, he goes to the land that God has given him and there he begins to lay the foundations of a true order of being, of the city of God. And that is how in that vocation to withdraw from Babylon and to enter into the land and there to work with God in the building of the city of God. To swallow up that theme of the land, you will see how the two ideas of the land and paradise are intimately interwoven.

[05:42]

In fact, as you go on through the Old Testament, it gradually becomes clear that this land of promise is paradise. It's the restoration of land to its original harmony with nature. As I say, that's a rather long theme and one would have to take the whole conference to quite a recluse. But now I'd like to go on to the subject of degeneracy. not the matter of vow with us, but nevertheless obviously basically in the monastic life and I would say in the Christian life. And here again I think we have to rethink the faith of virginity in the Christian life. It's one of those things where perhaps an even greater change has come than in this matter of material wealth and poverty. As you know in Read the Farthest, you have these wonderful phrases of virginity. But you have an almost corresponding depreciation of marriage.

[06:47]

Sometimes it is relatively valid, sometimes it is quite undoubted. I think it would be written in many of the fathers. And we have seen in our day a very, very strong movement within the church to rediscover the place of marriage in the Christian life. And this corresponds with a general movement throughout the world, a revulsion from Puritanism in all its forms, a recognition of the essential goodness of sex and of marriage, and an attempt to live out the consequences of that. Well now, in the world in general, of course, we can't reject its movement. It's very strong in America, it's strong in the Western world, perhaps. This movement against colonialism, Victorianism in England, your Joratan tradition in the United States.

[07:50]

And of course, it has swung in the opposite direction. The recognition of sex is good, but sex without control obviously brings you to disaster. and to a large extent we are reaping the effects of that attitude of life. But within the Church there is this growing movement of concern for the place of marriage in Christian life, the recognition that marriage is not merely good, not merely holy, because it's a sacrament, but it's actually a way of perfection. I think we're all now becoming conscious of that, that in this giving of themselves to one another, the man and the woman, become one in Christ, and this love of one another in Christ, in marriage, is one of the means of Christian perfection. You know, there are many people in the world today who are living a really wonderful Christian apostolic life in marriage.

[08:52]

I think this is a great achievement of the modern world. No doubt it was much the same in the early church, but from a very early time, from the 4th, 5th century onwards, I think we can say the ideal of hegemony so far predominated that this idea of a perfection of life in marriage was rather lost. So that is a positive gain. And also, I think you probably know that the modern theology of marriage is developing very much, and we're learning to see that though it's very right, of course, it was necessary at the time to insist that marriage is for the production of children, yet we get a very inadequate idea of the factment of marriage, of the mystery of marriage, if we think of it simply in terms of co-creation.

[09:52]

Obviously, that is an essential element in it, but it is not the whole. And I think the modern theology of marriage tends rather to consider marriage as a community of love, I think that is the phrase from... which is being used and which expresses more accurately the Christian ideal. It is this, the man shall leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife and they shall be one flesh. And there, in this community of love, the man and the woman fulfill their human nature in Christ. It's a method of fulfillment of our human nature. The complementary halves, the man and the woman, or united in a home. Well now, this is a very wonderful kind deal and it's very necessary for us to understand it and appreciate it. At the same time, we must learn to see the ideal of virginity.

[10:54]

in relation to this idea of marriage. And we've no reason at all to go back on the teaching of the Church, which sees virginity as a higher state, a definite state, a way of perfection, which, as I say, marriage can be. Others are called to it as a way of perfection, yet virginity is but more adapted to the structure of a piston. Well now, what is the reason for that? Well, let's go a little deeper. Now, let us consider what is the basis of marriage and virginity. We are concerned here with the most fundamental force in our life, the force of love, really. That is, marriage is a community of love, and the whole of this problem of marriage and virginity is concerned with this The force of love in its deepest sense, when St.

[11:58]

Augustine said, Hamor meo, pondus meo, to my weight, my inclination, the whole bearing of my nature, is in love. And we are all rooted, as Roman psychology has revealed to us so clearly, in this love, from the very moment of birth to childbirth, the impact of love in its nature. And it goes out to its parents, and to the mother, and to the father, and then to brothers and sisters, and so on. The evolution of this kind of love in our lives. This has to grow along a definite line. As you know, the psychologist traces this phasor of love. It can get stopped in its growth. If the child's stopped in the love for its mother, then you can get the whole emotional life failed to develop. It remains an infantile state. And so at the other stages, it can stop at these different phases.

[13:01]

But I think it's rather important that we should also see that the learning It's only a phase in the development of our love. I think often marriage is considered as the ultimate goal, but for a Christian surely that can never be so. Marriage is one of the phases in the development of our love. At a certain time, in adolescence, this force of love becomes canonized, normally, in effect, and it's relationship of the man and the woman begins to develop towards marriage, and that is called perfectly normal and right. But surely we must see that this development of love along the line of marriage is not the final state. Obviously marriage is concerned with the creation of children, and that is a phase which both the man and the woman must cross. At a certain stage the woman is past childbearing, and she can no longer fulfill herself a lot less lines.

[14:04]

And I think for many women, and perhaps even many Christians and Catholics, there is a sense that they no further go beyond it. But surely we should see that there is an ultimate goal beyond it, that this community of love which begins for the parents, in their marriage, in their childbearing, should be fulfilled at the end of life. They have passed that phase, but now marriage enters into its more deeper spiritual communion, a very deep communion of the whole being, and this fulfillment of the man and the woman in Christ it seems to me should really take place after the family has grown. Then it is that marriage should reach its deepest level of fulfilment. I think that's rather rare. So we must see that the ultimate goal is not simply Marrying of children, that is levitating a propagation of the race, but it's only a phase of the split in human destiny, as the ultimate stage will be reached when there is no more marrying or giving in marriage.

[15:15]

We're moving towards a goal when we can't beyond the demands of marriage. Now that surely helps us to see the place of virginity in which the father spoke so clearly. They were always looking at the eschaton, at the end, and they saw that in the light of the resurrection there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage, and therefore the fulfillment of human life, both for the man and the woman, is a transcendence of the stage of marriage, and there is the common goal for all Christians. But in that respect, it is not difficult to see how some Christians may be called to go more directly to that goal. It is not necessary to pass through the stage of marriage in order to reach the goal of fulfilment of our love in God, Many echoes from this stage of marriage, but it may also go more directly. Quite clearly, it is a definite calling.

[16:16]

The majority are called to fulfill themselves in marriage, but a minority will always be called to forego that stage, to realize the love of God more completely, and to realize not only the love of God, but to realize their own This sort of love, you see, this impulse of love in their nature will be realized for them fully without passing through marriage. Well now, that shows us the place of virginity, and it also shows us what is our real purpose. In our everlasting life, our love must be fulfilled. That is absolutely clear. If it isn't fulfilled, then our monastic life will never be complete and our Christian life will never be complete. And that is something to which we ought to pay attention. Now, this matter of the relation between

[17:17]

sex of God, let us say, is very fundamental and it comes up very much in ancient pagan religion. You know, in all ancient religions, sex was regarded as something holy, and I think that is something very fundamental to us all. Most of the very unfortunate Curitan tradition grew up in Protestantism, but also, unfortunately, in policies of the end of the Jeansonistic prejudice, by which, really, a profound debate came in, by which sex was regarded as something animal, something rather degraded, something which wasn't spoken about, and which was kept out of sight. And then, of course, it's disastrous. You're simply refusing to accept the fundamental impulse of our nativity, how it comes from God, and to see its actual originate. Now, I'm sure the pagan was profoundly affected. He saw the holiness of sex.

[18:19]

To him, it was always something mysterious, wonderful, coming from God, and always related to God. You will never find a true pagan who regards sex as something profane, as we now do as a sort of antitype, as if it had to be fulfilled in a profane way. No, it bears on our relation to God. Well now, in Hinduism, you know, you have this health of the living God. And many Christians, particularly Protestants I think, but Catholics as well, have been terribly shocked by this cult of the lingam, the male organ of generation, which is so universal in Hinduism. I remember once I was going along a river in a very There was in part of the Karnathea a very small bionic scene, and I saw a little shrine by the side of the river, and I looked in, and it was a very simple stone shrine, about four or five feet high, and within was nothing but the lingam and the yogi, the male and the female organ of generation.

[19:23]

And, you know, there's absolutely nothing sexual or evil in that. When you say the sculpture is very rough, it doesn't tend to be suggestive in any way. It is simply a recognition of this fundamental holy power in human life, a recognition that this is basic to our human life, and that we've got to related to God and to our whole human life. We see that the Hindu doesn't hide it away, he accepts it fully, and he relates it to God. I don't say there have not been many abuses, there have been much profound abuses, and really serious ones in Hinduism, but still these basic attitudes surely is perfectly right. It's an acceptance of this gift of God, and an awareness of its essential holiness. Well now, we as Christians can certainly accept that, but we have to say immediately, if this gift is holy, if his path is holy, then it must be consecrated to God, to the true God.

[20:31]

And consequently, whatever our faith in life, we have to consecrate our sex to God, whether in marriage or in virginity. That is the choice which lies between us. Never can we accept that something profane as a mere sensual appetite is something belonging to the depths of our nature and involved in our relationship to God. If we accept then, that we exist conceptually, and if we find ourselves calling to give our lives totally to God, then we are involved in giving this power of sex in our nature to God, and I think in our nasty diet, we must take that into consideration. We must not allow it simply, I mean, to pretend in any way that we sort of left that behind when we come into the monastery. You've left behind sex and marriage, but of course you have it, you've brought it in with you, it's in your nature.

[21:38]

And it's got to find a place in our lives. We can't just suppress it, which is of course disastrous, or simply try to leave it out. It's got to have a positive place in our lives. And of course once we begin to think of it in terms of the power of love, then obviously it has a definite place in our lives. Now I'd like to make a suggestion in regard to this, which I feel is very important. And that is this, that in every human being there is a male and a female nature. We are men or we are women, but that does not mean that we are wholly masculine or wholly feminine. Every man has a feminine part to his soul, and every woman has a masculine part. Jung, you know, is naked when I think of the pain. The fact of knowledge is that the masculine element in every soul is the animal, and the feminine element is the animal. So that in every human being there is this animal, which in the male is dominant,

[22:44]

while the animal, the female element, is subconscious. Beneath, and in a woman, the animal, the feminine element, is dominant, normally, and the masculine element is underneath, is subconscious. So there is the normal pattern of human life, and in marriage, You have a meeting, the animals and the animals are out, and the woman will help the man to bring out the feminine part of his nature, and the man will help the woman to bring out the masculine part of their nature. There should be a gradual full fulfillment, as I said, of their nature, full marriage. Well now, in virginity, surely it is clear that what we are called to do is to bring about this marriage within ourselves, there must be a marriage in us between the animus and the anima, the masculine and feminine elements in our nature.

[23:48]

And we should surely be able to recognize these two parts of our nature, never to try to develop one for the expense of the other. And I think this is a very practical result. The anima to take first, because it's a hidden part of our nature, the one we're trying not to recognize. Yes, the feminine, it is the instinctive life, it is the emotional life as a whole, and I would also say the intuitive part of the mind. That is, in the mind itself, there's the masculine part of reason, of logic, and there's the feminine part of intuition, of imagination. And also in the emotional life there are masculine powers of anger, so there is the dominant power and then there is the passive power of love. And also in our instinctive lives.

[24:51]

So we all have this spontaneous, instinctive life with its powers of emotion and imagination and intuition. And it's the most precious gift of God. It is this necessary complementary part of our nature. And you know this perhaps out in the social sphere. I've been very conscious in India Now, most Indians, I think most orientals, certainly Indians, particularly South Indians, out of whom I live, are very feminine in their nature. You'll feel it immediately, and the more you'll know them, the more you'll realize how they're dominated much more than normal people are. I mean, the ordinary American is much more dominated by his animal, by his unconscious. spontaneous life, and I think it's very true probably in Africa, all this natural spontaneous dance and song and childlike joie de vivre which you get, all that belongs to the animal.

[25:55]

And it's very precious, and to me it's a wonderful beauty, the light. When you see an Indian simply walking, there's a beautiful spontaneous movement, and there's a natural beauty. I mentioned the extreme poverty in which they lived, this little house. And yet, you know, you see children coming out of this house with this perfect beauty. Young girls, for instance, they wear these very simple saris, they don't become anything much, but they're too perfectly beautiful. And really, when you compare them with people in the West who've got all the resources and wealth and luxury, they don't attain spontaneous beauty in which they're allowed to attain. And this comes from this free, uninhibited life of the animal. But, they have their weakness, and I've been discovering that more and more. They live from their animal, from the unconscious, beautifully and spontaneously,

[26:58]

But they haven't got the moral and rational control which we have. And consequently, they do the most terrible things. They're completely unreliable. You'll never know what they'll do. I mean, they'll tell lies with absolute spontaneity. How could they have heard it? You see, it's quite different. It's not a deliberately malicious lie. They want to please you. They do ask how far it is. You hear this in many parts of the world, actually. If you're walking somewhere and you ask how far it is to your destination, well, they look at you and they see you're looking very far. A little, a couple of miles, you'll be very unhappy, and then you go for the tour, and you're like, oh, it's just a few furlongs, and you're quite happy, and they're quite happy, [...] and you're like, oh, it's just a few furlongs, and you're quite happy, and you're like, oh, it's just a few furlongs, and you're quite happy, and you're like, oh, it's just a few furlongs a terrible sort of unreliability, and what we would call plain dishonesty, and mercantilism and so on.

[28:05]

But it's very valid that it should be treated very simply as being this all-plainness movement of nature. And so I, when I first went out, I was, let's say, enchanted with this, and I thought, how wonderful it was. But I soon began to find it very intricate. You get the gist exactly, because you can never rely on anybody, and you never know when something tells you something, and it's all lost. You've just got to work around and ask other people and find out. And they're used to that. They know how to deal with each other, and when somebody says something, they immediately begin to inquire whether it's true or in what way it's true or not. I give an example. We happen to know a great deal with problem atrocities in our farm and so on. And I think I mentioned we're cooperating with the government in this. And we get wonderful assistance from them. They're very keen on helping on our farm. And I know one of the basic reasons for this is that we are comparatively honest.

[29:08]

And they know that if they help us, we shall make proper use of it. And on the other hand, they know that when they start a government file, the person in charge will simply be concerned with his own advantage, and will be misusing everything that's not in the general law. It's pretty unfortunate. The government of India, I am happy to announce, is being frustrated because of the misuse of all the money and resources that the government has brought, of course, and it's all gone, and they simply use it in their own traditional way, just for their own volition, for their family, and so on. And very, very little really goes into the right shovels. And consequently, when they see somebody using it rightly, they are really anxious about all they catch. And for a long time, there was a great hold-up of cement. It's always happening. Some shop buys up all the government stocks of cement, which builds it off of the black market, so that you can't get it in the normal way.

[30:16]

And so we used to go to the government office of the concerned to try and get some. And we were quite amazed at the way we could always do it. Father Francis, he goes along on these occasions, and he goes, you know, in this caravan, he goes barefoot usually, and I think this creates a bit of pressure on me, because I'm probably very concerned. And he would see dozens of people waiting for their supply of cement, and so on, and he would go in and ask for 200 bags, and write off and give it to him straight away. And we asked about this, and they said, oh, it's quite simple. When anybody else asks for cement, he's got it. I mean, really, it's going to do about it, what he asks directly. When you ask for it, it's fairly certain that he knows what you're going to do with it. So, you see how it works. Well, now, let me pretend that you've found this spontaneity in life, but you've not got this moral and rational control, as it goes on with education, which is very natural.

[31:24]

I think it's a circular education. On the other hand, you see, we have the opposite. For most of us, from childhood, the animus is predominant. We are trained to be rational and logical and to be self-controlled. control ourselves, and you can see that in the way we often behave. I've often watched in a city back there in Galore, you see the Indians going along, and as I said, walking is perfectly spontaneous, and it has no particular purpose. They're just walking along, and they see somebody, and they turn its eye, and they'll talk to them, and then they go on a little, and so on. And all through the day, there really, there's no sort of directing purpose at all. They're just being carried from thing to thing. There is a sort of purpose in the background. But you see, like, the European or the Leningrad, then you can see purpose written all over it. And he's walking, it's not so beautiful or spontaneous, but it's got a purpose and he gets there.

[32:30]

And on the other hand... Even the most elementary things, like buses and trains, never get there directly, if you see it. One thing to folks expect, the unexpected, is that if they wait, they will never go off at the right time. They know that some friend of theirs has said that he's coming, and he'll have to pay half an hour late to get to the bus. No, no, [...] But we, humanity, have this direction in our lives. I think that illustrates this two-sided arcane, the animus and the anima. And we, in our own lives, have to bring them into relationship. And I may say, I'm only guessing here, but I think in America, you know, the Negro problem goes very much back to that.

[33:33]

You see, the Negro represents the Anima. He is this spontaneous other side of our nature. which, in America generally, is not accepted. The American has got his goal, and first he's developed this wonderful scientific civilization, and it's going along that line, and he's not really found a place in his life for this other side of his being. He's starving one side of his being, and socially that is expressed in his attitude to the Negro. I don't want to get too involved, but I think that it's a fairly simple deduction, really, and that, you see, therefore the Negro problem is something essential to the salvation of America, only when a Negro is integrated into American life, Well, the white American has achieved a real integration into his own life. At every level, you've got to achieve the balance of these opposites. And so in our own personal life, we must see this feminine side of our nature, we must recognize it, and we must respect it, and see that it comes from God, there must be no question.

[34:45]

of suppressing it, and on the other hand we must see this rational side of our nature, we must accept that, and we must accept its limitations. Now what normally happens to us, I think, is this. Either we tend to give way to the other, we let it have its own way, And then of course we're carried away by our sensuality and by all these underground forces in our nature and we don't know what will come of us. This is our human state really. We're swung between these two extremes. Either we surrender to the animal and we're carried away and we lose control, or else we are terrified of being carried away by our sensuality, and so we get a grip of the animus of self-control, of reason over us, and we become imprisoned in this rational, scientific control of everything, you see.

[35:46]

And there, in society and in our own selves, I think that is what we're always experiencing, this swinging between the opposites. And that is what our life as monks has to overcome. We've got to discover this inner poise and integration by which we shall not be carried away by the one or the other. Now we have to know our nature. There are some people, and each of us perhaps in certain phases of our lives, we are being carried away by our feelings and so on, and we must learn control. in the beginning of the religious life, very often, that is the principal thing. We've got to learn to live by a rule. We've got to learn order and habits and virtue. And it's very right that we should concentrate on that. But while we're doing so, we must not forget this other side of our nature, and we mustn't allow this control, this rule, this

[36:49]

regimentation to possess us, as it were, and that I think is the danger as we become more mature, perhaps on to profession. Very often, well you know what happens sometimes, somebody goes to an officiate and he's wonderfully self-controlled and speaks the rule absolutely perfectly, and then suddenly he's professed and everything disappears and he swings over to the office. Well, not fully, we have generally, but still, I think it is a certain crisis for us very often that this other side of our nature, which we have kept in control, begins to come up again, and we are faced with this matter, and I think for the mature monk, The problem of the animus is a really serious one. We've got too much of this control, and now this is the real secret of it. What is causing all this fluctuation, which makes us swing from one to another, is, as I said, in the root of human nature, is this self-centeredness.

[37:58]

It's because we're self-centered that the anima takes charge. If your anima is centred in yourself, give it scope and it will simply carry you away. And equally, if your animus is centred in yourself, if you are trying to control your life from your own power, then you will find that you will get more and more grip over your then you will lose all spontaneity, and you may even lead on to a breakdown. And that is the principal cause of breakdown, is this animus, this rational mind getting a down control, and simply suppressing the down nature, and then it can no longer sustain it. And I would say this, at least as a suggestion, that when we have trials of sensuality, particularly in our maturer life, and I think many find that they don't decrease very often, they increase as life goes on, I think it's nearly always

[39:04]

due not so much to the force of sensuality, to the animat, it's due to a lack of balance in the animus. We're trying to hold down our nature too much. And this rebellion is really God's sign that we've got to relax. And when you are tempted sensually, I think you've got to look not to your sensuality, but to your mind and will, and to this rooted pride. You see, ultimately the figure is trying to control the whole being. and it's that rooted pride which is causing this rebellion of nature. So, pride and sexuality, well, they're supposed to have come together at the original thought of man, and I think they go very closely in our whole life. And therefore, when we attempt, essentially, we should immediately suspect this inner pride of trying to rule our lives for ourselves.

[40:06]

Well now, once we've seen that, the way of salvation probably becomes clear. We've got to release both the animat and the animus, our whole nature, from this grip of self-centeredness, and make our surrender to God. And each of them, the anima and the animus, must be surrendered to God, and when they are, then and then and then the true marriage can take place. And that is how I see our monastic life. As I say, we are called not to fulfill ourselves in marriage, We put ourselves in virginity. The two sides of our nature have got to come together in a whole. And what is defeating us is fundamentally this self-centeredness, which is the effect of original sin. And what we're called upon day by day to do is to renounce ourselves utterly into the hands of God. Now I think there are two aspects of this renunciation.

[41:10]

The anima. is a woman, and it is natural for a woman to surrender herself. And therefore, in that aspect of our life, each of us has to make a surrender of God, exactly as a woman does to her husband. You know, the whole symbolism of Christ and the Church enables us to see it in that life. He is the husband to our soul, and with his feminine soul in us, And for each of us, surely there should be a complete, spontaneous, and complete surrender of his love to Christ as there is on the part of a woman to her husband. I speak, when she speaks about the husband should love her wife as Christ loves the church. This is the mystery of marriage. Well, so it is, it can't be. The woman, the feminine side of us has to be surrendered to God, to Christ.

[42:16]

I say rather to Christ because it is a very concrete surrender to God that He has shown Himself to us in the flesh, not simply to God in the abstract. And then we have this other task equally necessary, which is the abandonment of the animus. And now that, for us as monks, I think, is often a very difficult task. The animus is the principle of reason, of order, of virtue and of perfection, we can say. It's through the animus that we are striving after perfection. We want to keep the rule, we want to practice virtue, we want to be a perfect man, let us say. And that is a perfectly right aspiration. But it will only be fulfilled when the animus has surrendered itself to God. As long as the least trace of egoism in our animus is still a breach of perfection, we will simply be enclosing ourselves in a state of self-denial.

[43:22]

perfection. It's the greatest obstacle to all spiritual perfection, this control of the animals. And as you know, we have a great mystery in the gospel that it wasn't the publicans and the Harlots, who crucified Christ, it was the Pharisee. The Republicans and the Harlots, he said, should go into the kingdom of heaven before you. They are the people who live by their animosity. And they are at fault, but still, it's not the fault of the deliberate pride of maliciousness of their state, you see, everywhere in India, and I know all over the Middle East as well. It's a sort of, I mean, carried away by their nature. And it hasn't got this He, though, of self in it to the same extent. But the ferret, you see, was the righteous man. I think that I am not like other men. I decline to all that I have.

[44:24]

He was justified in his own eyes. He was living from the animals. He was keeping the law. and he was justified by the law. This is the work of the Ariels. And surely that is our dangerous mother. We've got this wonderful rule, we want to live by the rule, and we like to have an order, we should have an order in our life. But we can cling to all that in the wrong way. You know, you can get bound by the rule, you can get bound by your servants, you can get bound by the cult of virtue. And so you're getting more and more shut off in yourself. And therefore the animus has to make this very profound surrender. And that means, surely, it's surrendering to the action of God in our life. from day to day. And that, I think, is the key to it, isn't it? We have a rule, you see, and we go to choir at this time, and we go out to work at that time, but in actual life, we're always met with a particular circumstance.

[45:29]

When we go to choir, we may meet a brother or some father, and he may require something of us. But there is the action of God in the concrete. God is coming into our lives, in that father or that brother, or maybe just in the rain. We're going up to the church, and suddenly a downpour of rain comes, so we're confronted then with an action of God. And it's this response to God's concrete action in our lives that is how we surrender the animals. a natural reaction of the animals when it rains is to say, what a nuisance, why should it rain now, just as I'm going up to church. You see, we immediately react against these things, but the reaction of the animals surrendered to God is the rain comes from God. God has sent its rain. I'm involved in this situation because God has ruled it. I surrender to God in this situation. So it is, with the power of our prophet, he may come with some demand on us, we may think it's just the wrong time to be asking me about this. There's no need now, I can very easily do this after church, after the office.

[46:32]

But no, this is God's action. He has moved that brother to act in this way. I'm confronted with God in that brother, in that situation. And my response was, neither can I do. I may refuse him, I may, in the light of God's grace, say to him very gently, I'll speak about it afterwards. But it must be very gently, and it must be done in the light of God, and not in a natural reaction. So, the surrender of the animals comes from this surrender to God's action in our lives, and in the concrete, in the situation in which we are, well now, it's taking rather long, but I hope that brings out the main lines of this grace, so to speak, or virginity in our lives, that we have this call from God to make a complete surrender of our love to him, the whole impulse of love in our nature, which can go through these different channels and can go into marriage.

[47:38]

We are called and we respond to the call to surrender this love totally. And that means that the two sides of our nature, anima and animus, must be totally surrendered to God. And when we do that, then the true marriage takes place, then we have a wholeness in our lives, and that surely is what we must continually seek. And as long as we find, and of course we shall find in ourselves, that lack of balance, one straining against the other, that must be a warning to us, that we've not attained the balance, that we've still got to make this deeper surrender. And that is where, as I said, this Self-will, this self-centredness is so deeply rooted and we find all the time it's thwarting our efforts to reach this surrender, to reach this balance. And all the trials of our life are simply warnings from this side and from that, that we've not attained the balance.

[48:41]

I think that is the thing that David, when we are tempted with one way or another by pride or by sensuality, it's the warning to God that With that lack of balance in our nature, we have to try to make the surrender at that point, and to cover the balance. And so, if we follow out this path of self-surrender, there should be this gradual meeting of the two sides of our nature, this gradual marriage of our whole being, which will make us whole men, completely mature, fulfilling all the instincts of our nature. You see, the wonderful mystery is that by renouncing their use in the ordinary way, in marriage, general life of the senses, we consecrate them to God, but they reach their fulfillment in God. And in the culmination there is a wonderful opportunity for fulfillment of our whole being. It's within a narrow sphere, but nevertheless it is more fundamentally complete.

[49:45]

There is a greater opportunity actually for this full integration. So I feel that it will be a great help for us if we can see our monastic life in those terms and our true fulfillment of our being, of our whole being in God by this fundamental self-surrender. And there again we see the same principle of death and resurrection coming into our lives as we die to that self-centeredness in the two sides of our nature. And so our nature recovers its true being And we return to that unity of being in God, for which we were created. And that, of course, is our goal, our end. We are moving towards the resurrection, when the whole of our being will be reunited with God. The whole animal nature, the whole rational nature will be revived, will be united in a perfect home in the unitive mystical body.

[50:47]

Talks about being a chosen citizen. cast the crown of blessings and give up conviction, and give peace to those that receive it, open to us the sea of God, the waters, the petulous streams of the riches of our grace and power. On the most sweet streams of it, speaketh the tune of quietness, and the ears of peace, in only that the quietest part. So in us should be a strength knowing this by your power, not closing to you and to each other, Now I'm letting it bake a little longer so I can finish.

[51:28]

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